Sunday, May 31, 2015

The Holy Trinity

“Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the
undivided Unity. Let us give glory to
him because he has shown his mercy to us” (Liturgical Text from the Introit
for Holy Trinity).

Nicodemus
comes by night, under the cover of darkness, to converse with Jesus, the Word
of God made flesh. He comes by night,
because he is afraid. Nicodemus is a
member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. The
Sanhedrin does not approve of Jesus and His ministry. The Sanhedrin will very soon seek to put Jesus
to death. And, in fact, they’ll do
it. The Sanhedrin does not acknowledge
Jesus for who He is: The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the only-begotten
Son of the Father, the Logos, the Word, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of
the Virgin Mary, Messiah come to save sinners.
And Nicodemus, though he does not oppose Jesus, does not recognize Him,
either. Nicodemus is a teacher of
Israel, a theologian of the Church, but, as is all too common among theologians,
he does not know God when he’s staring Him in the face. To know God, you have to know Christ. Apart from Christ, there is no God. The Father is the Father because of the
eternal Son. The Spirit proceeds from
the Father and the Son. Three Persons, One
God. It is a mystery. But our God is revealed in the Person of the
Son who became flesh and blood and made His dwelling among us, Jesus of
Nazareth, Christ, the Savior.

You
can only know the true God in Christ. To
be sure, God has left evidence of Himself all around us in what we call the natural knowledge of God. That is to say, we know there is a God by nature, because of
creation. Every house is built by
someone. The Builder of all things is
God (Heb. 3:4). There is an intentional
design evident in creation itself, the way it all works together, the recurring
patterns, the order, the symmetry, the symbiotic relationship of organic life,
the very laws of science, and above all others, the fact that conditions on
this planet are just right to sustain human life and the wide variety of living
things in our world. Evolution has no
reasonable explanation for this. This
doesn’t just happen by accident. I don’t
know who built this building. But I know
there is a builder, or builders. I know
nothing about them. But I do know that,
no matter how many billions of years we sat around waiting for it to happen,
this building would NEVER accidentally come together with running water and
electricity and a scheme that in every respect is suited for the worship and
life of a Christian congregation. There
is a design evident in the building itself.
And if there is a design, there must be a designer. How much more complex is the created
universe? The design evident in creation
tells us Someone must have put this all together. We don’t know anything yet about him or her
or them. But we know that he, she, or
they exist. That is why everyone is, by
nature, religious. Atheists have to go
to great lengths to convince themselves there is no god. Every group of people in the history of the
world has believed in some sort of deity.
There is not only the evidence of creation, but there is also the
conscience. If there is such a thing as
objective right and wrong (for example, everybody knows you shouldn’t murder),
then there must be some objective being or beings who determine what is right
and what is wrong. Whoever that is,
that’s god. So what do we know about God
from natural knowledge? We know He
exists. We know He is powerful. We know He establishes right and wrong, good
and bad. Reflecting upon our conscience,
we know that we have done the wrong and the bad. We have murdered (in our heart, if not with
our hand). We have stolen. We have slandered. We have cheated. We have exploited and used and abused. And thus there is fear: Maybe God is against
us. Maybe that is why there are floods
in Texas and tornados and earthquakes and nuclear missiles and sickness and
death. We cannot know otherwise by
nature.

And
that is why it is such good news for us when Jesus announces: “God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him”
(John 3:17; ESV). We know we have a
gracious and merciful God in Jesus, the Son.
Jesus is the revelation of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. He is the Son sent by the
Father, who gives the Spirit. He is the
Son sent to be lifted up on the cross (v. 14) for the sins of the whole world,
for your sins and mine. We know the one
true God in Christ, by the preaching of the cross. We preach Christ crucified, says Paul (1 Cor.
1:23). That is how you know that God is
for you, not against you. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave
him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
(Rom. 8:23). Because Jesus died, you
will not die. Because Christ is risen,
you will rise and live. For whoever
believes in Him has eternal life (John 3:15-16). Such believing, such faith, is the gift of
the Holy Spirit, who has given you new birth into the Kingdom of God.

That
happens in Baptism. Our Lord says, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (v. 5).
In Holy Baptism, that which is flesh born of flesh is born anew of the
Holy Spirit. That is what Paul says and
what you learned in Catechism class: “He
saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit”
(Titus 3:5; NIV). That’s Baptism. In Baptism, you are reborn in the death and
resurrection of Christ, and God is your Father.
This all happens as the Spirit comes upon you in your own, personal
Pentecost. And the Spirit continues to
grant you this faith, sustains you in the faith, as He blows through the
preaching of the Word. Remember that
spirit, wind, and breath are all the same word in the ancient languages, and
Jesus is giving us a play on words when He says: “The wind blows where it wishes” (v. 8). He is telling us the Spirit blows where He
wishes, just as He blew through the house that first Pentecost after our Lord’s
resurrection. He blows through with the
living breath of the Holy Gospel in preaching and Sacrament. Our Confessions put it this way: Through the
Gospel and the sacraments, “as through means, [God] gives the Holy Spirit, who
works faith, when and where he pleases, in those who hear the Gospel” (AC V:2;
Tappert). It is a mystery why some
believe the Gospel and others do not, but we do know that wherever there are
believers in Christ, that is because the Holy Spirit is doing His work,
bringing sinners to faith in Christ for reconciliation with the Father. It is a Trinitarian action.

Now,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in perfect communion with one
another. God, in Himself, as Holy
Trinity is the very definition of love and union. And in that perfect love, God fashions an
object on which to pour out His love.
Love is not content to be hoarded.
Perfect love gives itself for the beloved. God makes man. God makes you. In love, God molded the dust of the ground
and breathed into it the breath, the Spirit, of life. Adam was given dominion over the earth, but
he had no one upon whom to pour out his love.
It was not good. Therefore God
put Adam into a deep sleep, and from Adam’s side God formed a helpmeet, a
woman, a wife, Eve, the mother of all the living. Eve, now, is the object of Adam’s love, and
as Adam loves her, Eve responds in love, and both love and worship the God who
walks with them in the Garden (that’s Christ, by the way!) in the cool of the
day, who loves them and has given them this magnificent creation to tend and
enjoy and upon which to be fruitful and multiply. It all goes grievously wrong when Adam and
Eve break their love for God and for one another, listening to the devil,
eating the forbidden fruit, blaming one another for their fall, blaming God. What does perfect love do when it is rejected
by its object, when its object destroys itself?
What does God, who is love, do when beloved man falls? God loved the world, Adam and Eve and all
their children… God loved you in this
manner: He gave His only-begotten Son, gave Him into the death of the cross
as the payment for your sin, that whoever believes in Him should not perish,
but have eternal life (John 3:14-16). He
does not condemn the world. He gives
Himself in love in behalf of the world.
For you. That you may be His own
forever.

You
can only know that in Christ. You can
only confess that as one born anew of water and the Spirit. Anyone can behold a beautiful sunrise and
exclaim: “This is the day that the LORD
has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24; ESV). That is the natural knowledge of God. But only one who knows God in Christ can make
the same confession when a tornado has obliterated their home. This, too, is the day that the LORD has
made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Because those born of water and the Spirit
behold God nailed to the cross, and know that Good Friday is the Day that the
LORD has made. We rejoice and are glad
in it. Because we also know Easter
Sunday is the Day that the LORD has made, and so is the Day of our own
Resurrection to come, when we will stand on our own two feet again, and with
living breath rejoice and be glad in it.
Then we will stand before Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and ponder this
mystery of the Trinity with our own eyes.
Therefore, no more fear. You know
God in the flesh of Jesus, in the Body and Blood He places in your mouth for
your forgiveness and eternal life. You
know God who is merciful, who is for you, and not against you. Nicodemus, don’t sneak around in the
shadows. Come into the Light that is
Christ Himself. Believe in Him. You will not die. You will live. For God loves you. He loves you in this way: He sent His
Son. He does all things well. “Blessed
be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity.
Let us give glory to him because he has shown his mercy to us” in
Christ. In the Name of the Father, and
of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

The Day of Pentecost

The Day of Pentecost
(B)

May 24, 2015

Text: John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Jesus
promises the Helper will come (John 15:26).
The “Helper”… The word, actually, is Paraclete. You may know Him from other translations as
“Advocate,” “Counselor,” or “Comforter.”
He is all these, and more. We are
speaking, of course, of the Holy Spirit, who helps us in our weakness,
advocates for us before God, counsels us by His holy Word, comforts us with the
Gospel of Christ. “Paraclete” literally
means one who is called to the side.
When a child falls off her bike, she calls for Mommy. Mommy comes to her side to paraclete. She helps, counsels, and comforts. She advocates getting back on the bike. The Holy Spirit is at our side as our
Paraclete. He is poured out upon us in
Holy Baptism. He works on us and through
us in His Word and the Holy Supper. He
dwells with us and makes us His temple.
He proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Jesus promises the Paraclete will come, “whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who
proceeds from the Father” (v. 26; ESV).
The Spirit proceeds from the Father, through the Son, a little foretaste
of next week’s Feast of the Holy Trinity.
And though the Spirit is from all eternity, and has been here in His
creation from the very beginning, “hovering
over the face of the waters” when the earth was without form and void (Gen.
1:2), He was poured out upon the Church in His fullness that first Pentecost
after our Lord’s resurrection (Acts 2), blowing through the house like a mighty
rushing wind, bestowing tongues of fire on the disciples and loosing their
tongues to preach… To preach Christ crucified for sinners, Christ Jesus risen
from the dead… To preach, not just to Jews, but to the whole world, each
visitor to Jerusalem hearing the Gospel of Christ in his own native language.

“(H)e will bear witness about me,” Jesus
says (John 15:26). That is what the Holy
Spirit does. He always points us to
Jesus. He is often called the “shy”
Person of the Holy Trinity, because He does not seek attention for Himself, but
for Jesus, by whom we are restored to the Father. The Spirit is always helping us with Jesus,
advocating for us through the blood of Jesus, counseling and comforting us with
Jesus. “He will bear witness about me,” Jesus says. “And
you also will bear witness,” the Lord promises His Apostles, “because you have been with me from the
beginning” (v. 27). The Apostles
were the official witnesses of Jesus Christ.
The qualification to be an Apostle is to have been with Jesus from the
Baptism of John until the Ascension (Acts 1:21-22). You actually had to have seen the risen
Christ with your own eyes. That is what
made you a “witness” in the full sense of the word. And now, with the coming of the Holy Spirit
at Pentecost, the Apostles’ mouths were opened to speak this eyewitness
testimony to the world, to preach Christ, the Savior. That is how it works with the Spirit. He is poured out on us in our Baptism. He bears witness to us about Jesus. He gives us living faith in Jesus. And though we are not witnesses in the same
technical sense as the Apostles, we witness His resurrection in His Word, and
as the risen Jesus gives us His Body and Blood.
By His Word, we’re with Him, from the Baptism of John to the Ascension,
indeed, from the creation of the world to its consummation at Christ’s
return. And the Spirit opens our lips
and looses our tongues to speak; some to preach in the Office of the Holy
Ministry, some to confess in their daily lives and vocations, one and all to
testify of Christ. The Spirit bears
witness about Christ first to you, then to your neighbor through you. But He’s always pointing to Jesus.

The
Church needs the Holy Spirit because we can’t see Jesus face to face. Our Lord has ascended into heaven. He is seated at the right hand of God the
Father Almighty. He is coming back soon,
to judge the living and the dead. But in
the meantime, we cannot see Him with our eyes, as the disciples did during His
earthly ministry. He is with us, to be
sure. He is with us in a very real and
tangible way. But that way is hidden in
Words and water and bread and wine. So we need the Spirit. Otherwise, we wouldn’t believe Jesus is with
us. This kind of thing is spiritually discerned, as the Apostle
Paul reminds us (1 Cor. 2:14). The
natural, unconverted person cannot accept it.
It is foolishness to human reason.
It is a miracle of the Holy Spirit that you believe any of this. That is the Spirit bestowing faith in Christ
where and when He pleases in those who hear the Gospel (AC V:2-3). You cannot believe this by your own reason or
strength. The Holy Spirit calls you by
the Gospel, enlightens you with His gifts, sanctifies and keeps you in the one
true faith of Jesus Christ (SC II: Third Article).

Notice
that it is through the Gospel that
the Holy Spirit brings you to faith.
Now, the Holy Spirit is God. He
is bound by nothing in and of Himself.
He can do what He wants. But He
has graciously bound Himself to means,
the Means of Grace, the Gospel, so that you can always know how to find
Him. He has bound Himself to preaching
and God’s Word, and to the tangible Gospel of Baptism and Supper. There you can be sure that it is the Holy
Spirit giving you comfort and counsel in Christ, not some other spirit, some
evil spirit giving you false comfort and counsel in someone or something other
than Christ. This is important: If a
spirit speaks to me in my head or gives me a feeling in my heart, how can I
know this is the Holy Spirit? I
can’t! It could be a delusion. It could be an evil spirit. But when I hear the Gospel, I know it is the
Holy Spirit who speaks to me. I know it
without a doubt. And when I receive the
Body and Blood of Jesus, I know it is the Holy Spirit who takes possession of
me, with the Father and the Son, one God, now and forever. The Spirit works through means, and He has
told us what they are, so we can always be certain.

And
that is how He testifies to the world, too.
By His means. By the Word. In preaching.
In your confession. In this way
He convicts the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement. Concerning sin, “because they do not believe in me” (John 16:9). The only sin that shuts a person out from God
is unbelief. The forgiveness of sins is
given freely in Christ who died on the cross as the payment for sin, and who
has been raised from the dead. He
convicts the world “concerning
righteousness,because I go to the
Father, and you will see me no longer” (v. 10). The only true righteousness that avails
before the Father is that of Jesus Himself.
Jesus is vindicated in His ascension to the Father. His righteousness is demonstrated before
all. And in the preaching of the Gospel,
the Spirit declares to the world that Jesus’ righteousness results in
justification of the sinner before God.
Believe in Him, and God counts you as righteous. You shall not die, but have eternal
life. Finally, the Spirit convicts the
world “concerning judgment, because the
ruler of this world is judged” (v. 11).
The devil is defeated. The world
judged Christ to be THE Sinner, and executed Him on the cross. The great mystery is, so did God. He made Him to be sin who had no sin, that we
might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). But now, having paid for the sins of the
whole world in His bloody suffering and death, Christ Jesus is risen from the
dead. God’s Judgment is for Him! And for us!
And against Satan. Satan and the
demons are damned. The Gospel publishes
the judgment. The Spirit bears witness
to Christ.

And
He leads the Church into all truth (John 16:13). Again, this is always and only through the
Word, through the Holy Scriptures. If
anyone comes proclaiming a new truth revealed to him by any other means,
run. Run away, and don’t look back. That one is a false teacher. The Spirit guides us into all truth through
the Word. It is not a truth that
evolves. It is not a truth that changes
with the times. And it is not dependent
on your feelings about it, as if what is true for one is not true for you
because you don’t feel it’s right, and you feel better about another truth. No.
The Truth is One. The Truth is
Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). And it is all things whatsoever Jesus has
commanded us, which we are to teach the baptized until our Lord comes again
(Matt. 28:19-20). The Spirit speaks to
us in the Scriptures. He speaks what He
hears from the heart of God (John 16:13).
All that the Father has belongs to the Son. The Spirit takes what is the Son’s and
declares it to you (v. 15). The Spirit,
poured out on you in Baptism (your own personal Pentecost), brings you into the
very life and love of the Holy Trinity, by washing you with the blood of Jesus. God’s own child, united to the death and
resurrection of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, your Paraclete. It is right there in the Words spoken over
you at the font: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Seventh Sunday of
Easter (B)

May 17, 2015

Text: John 17:11b-19

He is risen! He
is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Our
Holy Gospel this morning is a portion of our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer. Jesus is our High Priest. The High Priest represents the people of
Israel before God in prayer and sacrifice.
So Jesus represents us, His Church, before the Father. He makes the sacrifice of atonement for our
sins by His death on the cross. And here
in our text, on the night in which He is betrayed, the night He institutes the
Holy Supper of His Body and Blood, Jesus prays for us. It is a sneak-peak into what Jesus always
prays for us now, as He sits in glory at the right hand of the Father. Jesus continues to pray for His Church. And, of course, the Father hears and answers
His prayer. How could the Father fail to
hear His Son? He says “yes” to Jesus’
prayer. He bestows upon the Church
whatever the Son asks for us. And here
in our text there are three particular petitions that Jesus lifts before the
Father for our sake. He prays first of
all that we be kept as one in God’s Name (John 17:11). Second, He prays that we be kept from the
evil one, Satan (v. 15). And third, He
prays that we be sanctified in the truth of His holy Word (v. 17).

Jesus
prays: “Holy Father, keep them in your
name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one”
(v. 11; ESV). He prays that we be kept
in the Name of the Father which is given to and revealed in the Son: That is
the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This is a prayer that we be kept in our Baptism! This is a prayer that we not wander away from
our Baptism into Christ, in which all of our sins have been washed away and
each one of us has been made God’s own child.
It is a prayer that we return to our Baptism daily in repentance, as
once again we drown the old sinful nature that the new man daily emerge and
arise to newness of life in Christ by faith.
Now, the world does not want this.
There is a reason the penalty for Baptism is death in those countries
where persecution of Christians is the hottest.
The world hates Baptism, and the world hates the Baptized. The world hates you because the world hates
Jesus. The world wants to tear you away
from Jesus. And the most effective way
the world can do that is to lure you away by enticing your sinful flesh, so
that you come away all-too-willingly.
These allurements can be money, power, influence, sex, altered
consciousness, you name it; but whatever it is, the allurements are
captivating. They appeal to your lust,
your covetousness, your selfishness. And
they trap you. But upon closer
inspection, these things are ultimately empty and unable to give you the
pleasure they promise. That is why you
are always itching for more.

Our
Lord knows how weak we are. And though
our Lord Jesus is very much with us in His Word and Sacraments, with us in all
His fullness as God and Man, still, He is no longer visible to the naked,
fallen eye. We do not see Him and hear
Him in precisely the same way the disciples did during His earthly
ministry. So Jesus prays for us that we
not fall away from our Baptism. He prays
that God keep us by His Spirit from the allurements of the world and the
weakness of our flesh. He does not pray
that God would take us out of the world.
That is interesting. It seems
like it would be easier if He just took us out of the world the moment we are
baptized so there would be no danger of us falling away. But He doesn’t do that. He want us in the world, confessing Christ
and serving our neighbor in our various vocations. But He prays we would not be of the world, that we wouldn’t be at home here, but remain His own in
Baptism.

He
prays this so that we might be one, even as the Father and Son are one along
with the Holy Spirit, three Persons, one God, the Holy Trinity. Jesus wants us who are baptized into Him to
enjoy an intimate unity and communion with one another in Him. As we heard last week, we are a family, the
Holy Church. We are brothers and sisters
in Christ. Actually, the Communion of
the Baptized is even more intimate than that.
In this Communion, we are one Body, the Body of Jesus. There are many members of this Body, each
with our own particular functions, but we are one Body. That is the reality of our Baptism. And so, just as it is in the human body, when
one member suffers, we all suffer. When
one member rejoices, we all rejoice.
When you stub your toe, your whole body hurts with that injured
member. When your stomach is satisfied
after a delicious meal, your whole body relaxes and delights in the
goodness. St. Paul reminds us that we
are one Body, the Body of Christ, and individually members of it (1 Cor.
12). That’s the reality of our Baptism
and our Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ around His altar. We sometimes rebel against this notion. Sometimes we fight. Sometimes we offend one another. Sometimes we hurt one another. Brothers and sisters, this should not
be. When this happens, repent. And forgive.
Forgive, as you have been forgiven by God. And stick it out. That’s what families do. My family hasn’t cast me out yet, even when
I’ve deserved it. The Father has made us
a family, one Body, in fact, in Baptism.
And He keeps us in His Name, the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit.

And
He keeps us from the evil one, the devil.
The devil is our main enemy, the driving force of the unholy trinity:
the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh.
Needless to say, the devil does not want us to remain in God’s Name any
more than the world does. He wants to
sever us from Christ and divide us from one another. If he can’t do it with the help of the
world’s allurements, he’ll try to do it by causing divisions among us. When such division begins to rear its ugly
head in our midst, we need to recognize it for what it is: Another trick of the
serpent! Don’t turn against your
brothers and sisters. Stamp it out! Repent!
Return to your Baptism. Die to
yourself. Live in Christ. Forgive your neighbor. Love him.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Deliver
us from evil,” or more accurately, “Deliver
us from the evil one.” Jesus, our
Praying Priest, gave us that prayer to use against the devil whenever he
afflicts us. He also prays that prayer
for us in our text: “keep them from the
evil one” (John 17:15). And the
Father answers by sending the Spirit to keep us by the Means of Grace, the Word
and the Sacraments, in the one true faith of Jesus Christ; to be ever pointing
us to Jesus Christ our Savior; to guide us into all the truth (16:13). This is the Gift of God we celebrate
especially next Sunday on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured
out in all His fullness upon the early Church to guide them into all truth,
even as He is poured out on each one of us in Holy Baptism. This is what Jesus prays for us: Keep them in
Your Name. Keep them from the evil
one. And finally, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (17:17).

Jesus
prays that we be kept steadfast in His Word of truth, the Holy Scriptures. In this way, Jesus prays that the Father
would sanctify us, make us holy. God
makes us holy by the Word. That is why
you come to hear the preaching. That is
why you read the Bible. By His Word God
gives you the righteousness of Jesus.
That’s justification. And by His
Word God gives you the holiness of Jesus.
That’s sanctification. By His
Word you are sanctified, consecrated, set apart for God as the Holy Spirit
calls you by the Gospel, enlightens you with His gifts, and keeps you in the
true faith. The Word gives you faith in
Jesus and keeps you in that faith. The
Word gives you to know the truth and hold it sacred, putting it into
practice. The Word gives you to love and
serve your neighbor and seek to do what God commands. Jesus consecrated Himself, set Himself apart,
for the saving work of our redemption, so that we might be sanctified in the
truth of His Word (v. 19). In that Word
we have eternal life, because the Word imparts Christ. And He sends us out with that Word into the
world as His Body, the Baptized, the holy Christian Church.

Jesus
prays for us. And what a comfort. We know that the Father will not deny the
prayer of the Son. He hears His Son, and
He answers Him. He keeps us in our
Baptism. He keeps us from the evil
one. He sanctifies us in the truth; His
Word is truth. And so we have eternal
life. All our sins are forgiven. We have peace with God. We have peace with one another in love and
the unity of the Spirit. And we gather
in that unity for the Communion around the altar. The Body of Christ eats and rinks the Body and
Blood of Christ. It is the answer to
Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. Because
here at the altar, with one another, with Christians throughout the world, with
angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we are one. And the joy of Jesus Christ our Savior is
fulfilled in us. He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Sixth Sunday of
Easter (B)

May 10, 2015

Text: John 15:9-17

He is risen! He
is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

“Love”
is perhaps the most abused word in the English language. I love my wife, and I love pepperoni
pizza. Can that possibly be the same
kind of love? We say “I’m in love with
you,” but we really mean “I’m in lust with you.” We love the idea of love, but we have no idea
what love is. There are four Greek words
that mean different things, all of which we translate with the English word,
“love.” “Love” is always supposed to be
a good thing, but in fact our abuse of it often makes it a bad thing. “Love,” in our culture, can mean obsession or
possessiveness. Harm and abuse and
perversion are done in the name of love.
The physical act of love is often anything but. And of course, love in our culture
particularly means tolerance for anything and everything, even if tolerating
that thing harms the person we love.
Because not tolerating it is considered unloving, and that we simply
cannot tolerate. We’ve done a great job
screwing all this up. Love is one of
those slippery words that can mean whatever you want it to mean at any given
moment, which means that unless you carefully define what you mean by the word,
“love” is meaningless.

But
not to Jesus. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for
his friends” (John 15:13; ESV). You
want a definition of love that pins it down, the real thing, real and true love?
Look at the crucifix. That’s it. Jesus lays down His life to save His
friends. Jesus goes to hell and back to
save His friends. And the thing about
these friends is that they’re only His friends because He says they are. They certainly aren’t friendly to Him. He’s talking about sinners. He’s talking about those who despise Him,
reject Him, mock Him, kill Him. He’s
talking about you. For you He lays down
His life. For you He is pinned to the
Tree, suffers, and dies, precisely so that you can live and be His friend,
forgiven of all your sins which are now covered by His blood. That’s love.
Love is not a feeling. Love is
not an emotion. Love is not your heart
going pitter-pat when your beloved walks into a room. Those things are all very nice, but they are
not love. Love is decision. Love is action. Love is Jesus deciding you are His friend and
taking the action to make it so. The
Greek word used here is agape. This is love bestowed on one who is wholly
unworthy, entirely unlovable. It is a
love that expects nothing in return. It
makes no demands. It gives
everything. This is love unto
death. It is the love that sacrifices
the lover for the sake of the one loved.
It is love that goes to the cross at the hands of the beloved, for the
sake of the beloved. This is
Jesus-love. This is love of which you
are entirely incapable. I mean, if
you’re going to love someone, you expect at least a little love in return. And if you’re going to die for someone, well,
it better be worth it. St. Paul puts it
this way: “For one will scarcely die for
a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to
die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us” (Rom. 5:7-8).

Mother’s
Day is a great day to talk about this kind of love, because mom’s love is the
closest thing we have to agape
outside of Christ. Even this isn’t
exactly the same thing, but it’s parallel.
Moms, you know this, you will love your children and die for your
children no matter what they do, even if they reject you or disown you, even if
they do horrible things to you. You’ve
said it to them ever since they were little ones. Maybe you’re disciplining them (which, by the
way, is an act of love), and they shout something like: “You’re doing this
because you don’t love me!” And you say,
“I’m not happy with you right now, but I’ll always love you.” And you mean it. You don’t feel it. But you mean it. Love is not an emotion. It’s a decision and an action. Now, just to be clear, you love them because they’re your children, so even
this is not agape. God loves us even when we’re not His
children. His love is that He goes into
action to make us His children, the action of the cross, the action of death
and resurrection, Word, Baptism, and Supper, for you. That’s love.
Remember that line from the Lenten Hymn, “My Song is Love Unknown”? “Love to the loveless shown That they might
lovely be” (LSB 430:1). It’s not that
there is something lovable in you that makes Jesus comes and save you. It is that you are so completely unlovable
that Jesus comes to save you, that you be made lovable, that you “might lovely
be.”

Beloved
in the Lord, Jesus loves you. Can
anything give you greater joy than that precious phrase? Jesus loves
you… yes, even you. He loves you with the love of the Father
Himself. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (John 15:9). And He gives you to abide in His love, as we
talked about last week in the verses leading up to our text this morning. He gives you His Word, preached, read,
sprinkled, eaten, and drunk, that by these means you abide in Him and in His
love. And incidentally, our translation
says, “If you keep my commandments, you
will abide in my love” (v. 10). That
is certainly a literal and legitimate translation, but it can lead to a huge
misunderstanding. It makes it sound as
if we have to prove our love to Jesus by doing what He says, and if we don’t do
what He says, if we sin, we don’t love Him.
And that can lead to a big crisis of faith. The sense, actually, is this: If you keep,
treasure, meditate upon my Words,
everything I’ve said and taught and done for your salvation, then you will
abide in my love. Because the Words of
Jesus are the vehicle of His love. His
love flows to us in His Word. And this
is joy, true joy, full joy that cannot be taken away from you, not even in the
midst of sadness or tragedy or pain.
Because you always have Jesus’ Word.
“These things I have spoken to
you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (v. 11).

Jesus
loves you, and He calls you His friend.
That gives you joy! You did not
choose Him, but He chose you and appointed you to be His own (v. 16), and He
makes known to you, again, by His Word, all that He has heard from the
Father. You’re His confidant. You know things about Jesus and about His
Father that no one else knows, because He has revealed it to you in His
Word. You have access to God that other
people don’t (Scaer), because you are Jesus’ friend. That’s why you pray to Him confidently, and
you know He hears and answers. That’s
what friends do.

And
the thing about being Jesus’ friend, is that it necessarily makes you friends
with all the rest of His friends. This
is the reality of the Church, the Holy Communion, the group of forgiven sinners
Jesus calls His friends. So He tells you
to love one another (v. 12). The word,
again, is agape. Now, wait a minute! We just heard that we are incapable of this
kind of love. And we are. We
are. But when you abide in Christ and in
His love, this is what happens. The love
of the Father for the Son flows to you through the Spirit in the Word and the
Sacraments, and then it flows through you to one another, and to the
world. Jesus doesn’t want you to love
one another with just your own kind of love.
That will never work. It would be
a disaster, and we’d all be operating on our own meaningless definitions of
love, whatever they happen to be.
No. Jesus wants you to love with
His love. He wants you to abide in His
love so that you’re always being filled with it, so that it overflows to one
another. Jesus wants to love your
neighbor through you. That’s the fruit
He wants you to bear: His love poured out for your neighbor.

You
don’t do it very well. Your love keeps
getting in the way of Jesus’ love. You
know this. Confess it. Repent.
Your love doesn’t want to do hard things that bring you hateful
responses, rejection, and mockery.
Remember, Jesus’ love is the love of the cross, the love that dies for
those who hate Him. That’s the love that
now flows through you. This love
disciplines children, speaks the truth to your spouse, and confesses Christ to
loved ones who don’t want to hear it.
This love says, “Because we love you, you shouldn’t come to the Lord’s
Supper today, because we don’t want you to eat and drink spiritual harm on
yourself by not discerning the Body of Christ.”
This love says, “I’m saying this because I love you, but what you’re
doing is harmful to yourself and others, and it is sinful. It cuts you off from Christ. I love you, and I don’t want that for you.” Love does hard things, and then it takes the
consequences. It suffers the anger, the
resentment, the rejection. It pays the
fines, loses the business, and does the jail time. It marches willingly to death. It is not an emotion. It is an action. Your love can’t do it. Repent.
But Jesus’ love can.

And
Jesus’ love has. He bore His own cross
to Calvary. He stretched out His arms on
the cross-beams. He took the nails. He took your sins. He took your death. He took your hell. That’s love.
No one else has a love any greater.
He died for you. And He is
risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.

Sunday, May 03, 2015

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Fifth Sunday of
Easter (B)

May 3, 2015

Text: John 15:1-8

He is risen! He
is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Every
branch gets cut, one way or another.
There are the branches that have cut themselves off, preferring to go it
alone apart from the Vine. And there are
the dead branches in whom is no life of faith in Christ, no fruit of love. These the Vinedresser, the Father takes away
and throws into the junk pile. Then
there are the living branches, the Christians, who remain connected to the
Vine, our Lord Christ. These, says
Jesus, the Father prunes. I don’t know enough about gardening in
general, nor vine dressing in particular, but I do know that if you want a
plant to remain healthy, you have to cut away whatever is dead or diseased in
it. What is dead or diseased in
you? All that remains of the sinful
flesh. All that is not of faith. All that is not of Christ. These the Father must strip away by
pruning. And it hurts. Using other pictures, we call this the daily
drowning of the Old Adam in the waters of Holy Baptism, the crucifixion of the
Old Man. This is repentance. This is the cross. This is any suffering or affliction the Lord
uses to cut away all that is dead and diseased, so that you grow into a healthy
and thriving branch of the Vine, Jesus Christ.

But
everyone gets cut. As I mentioned, there
are some branches that cut themselves off completely. Now, if you cut a branch off a vine and lay
it aside, it will appear to go on living for a time. It will still be green. The leaves will still look fresh. But not for long. Because you’ve cut that branch away from its
source of water and nutrition. The roots
belong to the vine, not to the branch.
So the cut-off branch will very soon wither and die. The leaves will shrivel and fall away. And there is no chance of the branch bearing
fruit. For all practical purposes the
branch is dead the moment you cut it. So
it is with those who cut themselves away from Christ. It may appear that they remain alive, even
apart from Christ. Maybe they’re still
nice people. Maybe they still help their
neighbors and give to charity and send cards to the moms on Mother’s Day. But their faith is dying. Maybe it’s so gradual, they don’t even know
it. They may not know it until it’s too
late, when they breathe their last and find themselves cast into the outer
darkness. It is tempting, sometimes, to
cut yourself off from Christ. It would
be easier to conform to the world and cater to the desires of the flesh. You could do what you want. You wouldn’t have the Sunday morning
obligation. The world would embrace
you. No more danger of persecution. It might be nice for a few years (and let’s
face it, your earthly life is only a few years in the grand scheme of
eternity). But then what? What happens in the end? You find yourself eternally dead, eternally
dying. That’s hell. Eternally separated from the Lord and Giver
of life. That is why the Church prays so
earnestly for people who have cut themselves off from Christ. Lord Jesus, bring them back to Yourself! Rescue the lost sheep! Grant them repentance and restoration! It doesn’t always happen. But it does happen! I’ve seen it.
Never give up praying for the lost, loving them, and confessing Christ
to them.

Then
there are those branches that are still connected to the Vine, but are dead
nonetheless. Somehow they’ve cut
themselves off from the nourishment of the Vine without actually, physically
separating from it. The thing is, it
takes the expertise of the Vinedresser to tell the difference between a truly
dead branch that needs to be cut off, and a diseased branch that needs
pruning. In other words, you can’t tell the difference. Only God can.
So don’t set yourself up as Judge.
That is God’s job. Your judging
is dangerous, because it could actually make you one of these dead
branches. Repent. The dead branches still superficially connected
to the Vine are hypocrites by the true definition of the word. They appear to be Christians, they belong to
a church, maybe they even come to Church every Sunday. They lead pious lives and do nice things for
people. But their dark, dirty secret is
that they don’t finally believe in Christ.
Not as their Savior. Now, I will
say, if you’re worried you might be one of these people, you’re not. The thing about hypocrites is, it doesn’t
worry them that they’re hypocrites. What
happens to these is that God Himself eventually cuts them off from the
Vine. The Church earnestly prays for
these, that the Word of God would be like unto a hammer upon their hearts of
stone, to break them into pieces and make of them new and living Christians,
branches connected to the true Vine, Jesus Christ, receiving of His life-giving
and nourishing sap, the Holy Spirit.
This happens, too. I don’t know
if I’ve seen it, because you can’t tell the difference between the hypocrite
and a believing sinner. Only God can see
into the heart.

What
happens to these branches if they don’t repent, is that God Himself cuts them
off and throws them into the refuse pile, along with the other branches that
cut themselves off. And in the end, what
happens? Jesus says “the branches are gathered, thrown into the
fire, and burned” (John 15:6; ESV).
Again, that’s hell, “where their
worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). Beloved, do not cut yourself off from
Christ. Do not do it outwardly,
separating yourself from the Communion of Saints, absenting yourself from
Church and denying yourself the Lord’s gifts of forgiveness, life, and
salvation dispensed in His Word and Sacraments.
And do not cut yourself off inwardly, secretly denying your Lord while
outwardly maintaining the appearance of Christianity. If these dead branches are you, repent. The Lord is calling you to life, breathing
His Spirit into you now by His holy Word.
It’s not too late. But the Day is
coming, the Day of Judgment. Now is the
time of salvation. There may not be a
tomorrow. Do not delay. Confess your sins and receive the Holy
Absolution, which connects you once again to your Savior, Christ, the
Vine.

But
as we said, everyone gets cut. Even the
faithful Christians. Because the thing
about faithful Christians is, they often look more like hypocrites than the
hypocrites. They look diseased and
dying. Your sins are deadly. But the Father tenderly cares for these
branches. He tenderly cares for you. Now, what He has to do to you is painful. He has to cut you. He has to prune you. He has to call you to repentance. So He gives you trial and tribulation to
endure. He leads you to despair of
yourself, so you are not tempted to cut yourself off and go it alone. He leads you to despair of others, so you are
not tempted to seek salvation in some other vine, as if you could hop off one
and connect yourself to another. Every
sorrow, every misfortune, every sickness, disease, or catastrophe, is a
gracious call from the Father to repentance, to abide in Christ as your only
Savior, to stay connected to His Word and Sacraments here in the holy Church,
in the Body of Christ, with your fellow branches. It is only here in the Church, where Jesus
forgives your sins, waters you at the font, feeds you with His Word and with
His Body and Blood, and imparts His Holy Spirit, that you stay alive, and bear
fruit.

Because
here His cross and death and resurrection life flow into you and enliven you to
bear much fruit. The cross is the source
of it all. There our Lord Himself was
pruned, more than that, cut off by the Father and thrown into the fire. The whole Vine was uprooted and burned on the
cross. On the cross, the whole Vine dies.
And if the Vine dies, the branches die.
You died with Christ, you branches, you who are baptized into
Christ. And since that is true, you are
also risen with Christ, you branches who are baptized into Christ. You have new life. You have eternal life. You already possess it in connection with
Christ, the Vine. It will appear fully
on the Last Day. Your life flows from
the Vine, Christ Jesus, who is risen from the dead. In Him your sins are forgiven. Your flesh is pruned by God, your heavenly
Father. And you bear fruit, the fruit of
faith in Christ and love toward your neighbor.
Your fruit looks outwardly an awful lot like the same things the cut-off
branches are doing. You help your
neighbor, give to charity, and send a card to your mother. But you do it in faith. You do it in Christ, connected to Him. And so your works are sanctified. It is His love flowing through you to those
you serve. Apart from Him, those works
are not pleasing to God. But in Christ,
they are heavenly fruits, a pleasing aroma, a sacrifice of thanksgiving, holy,
and acceptable to God. Because they are
made in and with the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ. “I am
the Vine, you are the branches,” says Jesus. “Whoever
abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me
you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

So
abide in Him. Which is nothing else than
to say, receive the gifts He gives you here.
Do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred, and gladly
hear and learn it (Small Catechism, 3rd
Commandment). Remember your Baptism and
rejoice that you are washed clean of all sin and made a beloved Child of God,
your heavenly Father, upon whom you can call at all times for help and
blessing. Come to the Feast of our
Lord’s true Body and Blood, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of all
your sins, and be strengthened and nourished for LIFE in this dying world, life
in the midst of the pruning, life that outlives death, eternal life that will
result in your bodily resurrection on the Last Day. You abide in Christ when His Words abide in
you. The Word does it all. By the Word you are cleansed. By the Word you are connected to Christ. By the Word His life flows into you and bears
much fruit. Be in the Word, and let the
Word be in you, and you will be in Christ, and He will be in you. And you will live. Indeed, He is at this very moment in you,
giving you life. For He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.